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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441471">brighter now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipatfirstsight/pseuds/shipatfirstsight'>shipatfirstsight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Healing, Smut, brief moment of torture, minor smut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:56:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22441471</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipatfirstsight/pseuds/shipatfirstsight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t speak anymore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>brighter now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They don’t speak anymore. </p>
<p>Kylo tells himself that he doesn’t care--that it doesn’t matter. That caring for a scavenger is below him at first, and then later when that doesn’t work that his attachment to her is a weakness he does not need and cannot afford.</p>
<p>But it does matter. To him. It hurts to see her stiffen and deny him even the respite of their bond, like it doesn’t matter to <em> her </em> and he so wants to matter to someone. So he ignores her in turn. The flashes of hurt he feels from <em> her </em>in reply do not make him feel any better because he doesn’t want to hurt her, but he doesn’t know what to give her. Doesn’t know what she wants from him now, when he offered to walk away with her and she refused him.</p>
<p>Once, only once, does the force join them when they both---Rey has her hand down her leggings, her other hand cupping her breast and kneading it. At first, he thinks it is a figment of his imagination, so close is it to what he had been imagining anyway. Wishful thinking, and he fisted himself roughly, though he had been the one touching her in his mind. They do not speak, do not acknowledge that the other can see, but he sends thoughts of his hands and mouth on her, pleasuring her. When she comes she moans, and he thinks that on the exhalation that escapes from between her lips, she says something. He cannot tell, but he thinks it is either <em> Ren </em> or <em> Ben. </em> He wants to beg her to never call him anything but <em> Ben</em>, that he doesn’t mind his name on her lips, but he can’t break their unspoken rule and she’s already slipping away from him as he comes, choking back her name.</p>
<p>He feels her sometimes, in the back of his mind, questioning his decisions, wondering if now will be the time that he renews Snoke’s and Hux’s preoccupation with the Resistance, but he doesn’t care about that. He...he has to know what the bond between them is. He researches, finding comfort in the simple act of proving that their bond isn’t just another thing Snoke had forced on him.   </p>
<p>Kylo feels the loss of her like a physical ache, even when the force deigns to connect them again. Something vital has been stripped from them, something that would still be there if one or the other had made a different choice on that fateful day, and still it feels too late for him at least to make a different choice now.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“What are you doing?” she asks suddenly when he is on his way to Exegol, her tone censorious with...worry he thinks, and something in him sighs in relief and want and need. She had spoken <em> to </em> him, and that simple fact means everything, <em> everything </em>to him. He’d jumped when she’d spoken, so unexpected was her voice after all this time, causing his hand to fumble the controls. He had felt the bond connect them, of course he had, but this, her voice, it is a gift he had not hoped to receive.  </p>
<p>He breathes deeply, pulling over and stopping his ship before answering her. </p>
<p>“What do you care?” he asks and then winces at his own tone. It is not what he had meant to say, not the first words he’d wanted to say to her after a year of nothing.</p>
<p>Rey scowls at him. “You’re going someplace...wrong,” she says, instead of answering. “Of course that would be concerning.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t say why it is concerning, doesn’t say if it is worry for her friends and the Resistance....or, impossibly, for him. He squashes the hope that wants to build. </p>
<p>He considers, staring at her. “Exegol,” he finally reveals. “I’m going to Exegol.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head at him. “Why?”</p>
<p>“Why do you need to know?”</p>
<p>“B-Ren,” he hears her stutter over his name, and again he wants to beg her to call him Ben and nothing else. “Just tell me.”</p>
<p>He sighs in defeat, half amused at his inability to deny her the information she wants in this--something in him wanting to make up for <em> not </em>giving into her that day. “Palpatine has been speaking to me.”</p>
<p>“Palpatine?” her brow furrows. “The dead emperor?”</p>
<p>He rolls his eyes. “He’s supposed to be dead. That doesn’t change that he’s started speaking to me and I need to know why.”</p>
<p>“This doesn’t feel right,” she tells him. “This is a mistake. Don’t do this Be-Ren.”</p>
<p>“I thought,” he confesses, unable to stop himself from admitting his reasons to her even as he feels that pain in his chest <em>again </em>because she won't just call him Ben, “when I killed Snoke that it was over. That I could be free from someone trying to manipulate me. And now this? I want him dead, permanently. Or at the very least out of my head.”</p>
<p>She looks at him with something he can’t quite identify, before shaking her head at him, swallowing. Rey turns her head away from him, looking at something he cannot see before returning her gaze to meet his. “Be careful. Please.”</p>
<p>She is gone from him once more before he can answer her. He wishes it wasn’t like this, that they could be with each other--always. That he had done something foolish like reach out to her once more, offering his touch in a crude approximation of comfort. He thinks, he knows he would offer her the galaxy and himself along with it--if she wanted them.</p>
<hr/>
<p>He hadn’t wanted to believe that the emperor was really back. He’d come here hoping to find an abandoned sith temple. Rey had been right, though. There was something wrong about this place, something deeper than just the dark side. Something twisted, and wrong, so he’s no really surprised to see the man who is little better than a corpse.</p>
<p>The emperor hates him, he can tell. All his talk of being Darth Vader’s heir, being a strong student does not conceal the barely contained malevolence the emperor has towards him. Kylo has always been a means to some end for this man, and he thinks that end might be revenge against his family. </p>
<p><em> Kriff</em>, he thinks.</p>
<p>“You don’t know who the girl really is,” Palpatine finally croaks when none of his other words or empty promises make Kylo react.</p>
<p>“Who is she?” he finds himself asking, alert at the mention of <em> Rey</em>.</p>
<p>Palpatine laughs slightly, marking his interest. “I had a son, did you know? An embarrassing experiment.”</p>
<p>He says nothing else, and Kylo barely manages to suppress his desire to roll his eyes at the living corpse. “An experiment?” he settles on.</p>
<p>“He was not born of my blood, of course. I did not have the time or the inclination for that. But I nurtured him, raised him, adopted him. But he had no force sensitivity. A mistake on my part, to kill his family and take him when he was ordinary. When he had a child of his own, though, I was in the force. I hadn’t yet recreated my body. The girl was <em> so </em> strong in the force. I stole some of her life energy. Syphoning her force energy was too easy, until <em> you </em>awoke her to what she is. I am stuck in this half-body.”</p>
<p>He pauses again. “What do want of me?” Kylo asks.</p>
<p>“I want you to kill her. I need her to die so I can live and be whole again. Then, I will complete your training.”</p>
<p><em> Lies</em>, his mind tells him, <em> lies</em>. Palpatine wants them both dead, Palpatine wants to live and rule over the galaxy once more. Palpatine just wants to punish his family by having him kill someone he cares for-- <em> kill her </em> echoes in his head and everything in him rebels at the thought of her being gone from the galaxy forever to give this man life.</p>
<p>“Kill my granddaughter,” Palpatine orders on a hiss of air when he does not respond, “and <em> you </em>will be my heir. You will achieve what Vader never could. True, ultimate power.”</p>
<p>He can’t stop the words from escaping his throat, so complete is his immediate horror at the thought of Rey dead and gone, forever, by <em> his </em> hand, and he can’t do that to someone he lov-- <em> no, </em>he will not admit that here. </p>
<p>“Never,” he says, “I won’t kill her for you.” He knows the words are a mistake as they leave his mouth, but that doesn’t make them any less true.</p>
<p>Palpatine’s face transforms. That horrible mockery of benevolence that he had painted on his face is stripped away and all that is left is the contempt and hatred Kylo had sensed behind his words. “Fine, <em> Kylo Ren</em>. If you will not fall in line, my granddaughter will be brought to heel. You have reached the end of your usefulness.” </p>
<p>“She is not yours,” he says, gritting his teeth. “She will never be yours. She is not weak.” <em> Not like me. </em>“She will not be your creature.”</p>
<p>“She is <em> mine</em>. She has always been mine, she will always be mine, and I will destroy her if she defies me,” the emperor spits, nodding to someone behind him. He feels the force, but it is too late, and he is frozen in place as he is grabbed by vicious hands, forced down to his knees. His right arm is pulled away from his body. </p>
<p>“You wanted to be like Darth Vader,” Palpatine taunts as his followers restrain him, one raising a red lightsaber high--<em> his </em> red lightsaber high, and that seems a particularly cruel blow--swinging down slowly so Kylo can track every motion as the beam approaches his right arm. “<em>Be like him.</em>”</p>
<p>“<em>Ben,</em>” he hears someone scream towards him, but it’s too late. </p>
<p>There is a faint ringing in his ear as he stares, uncomprehendingly at his hand on the ground. Pain thrums through him, and he shakes despite the force energy still holding him in place. He sees a blue light just as the emperor’s force lightning grips his body, stopping after a few too-long seconds, only to resume again almost immediately.   </p>
<p>“<em>Ben, Ben,” </em>someone sobs in his head, over and over. He can’t respond, can’t think past the overwhelming pain radiating through him, and when the darkness comes to claim him, he falls into blessed unconsciousness. </p>
<p>New hands grab at him an indiscriminate amount of time later. Gentle hands, this time, running over his body. He cracks an eye open, is met with Rey’s bent head, examining his body clinically.</p>
<p>“<em>Rey </em> ,” he breathes, and then panics, trying to sit up, “what are you doing here--” but the words cut off when he finally sees his surroundings. He’s in the Falcon. It is unmistakable. “How?” is all he can think to say, all he <em> can </em>say, past the pain that still grips him.</p>
<p>She finally looks up at him, and he nearly gasps from the tears evident on her cheeks and in her eyes. “I grabbed you,” she chokes out, “with the bond. It took--it was hard to move you, but I did it.”</p>
<p>He sees it know, the exhaustion in her eyes past the tears. The way her hands shake as they continue to roam over his torso, seemingly unable to stop touching him. “Why?” is all he can think to ask.</p>
<p>The question upsets her. “Do you think I want you to be hurt? Do you think I liked having to see what he was doing to you?”</p>
<p>He swallows thickly. He cannot answer her because he doesn’t know. </p>
<p>Rey doesn’t seem to need any words, seeming to calm finally. She grips him as she rises, pulling him up into a standing position with her. He has to lean on her; his leg seems to be broken, though he doesn’t remember getting the injury, and he feels drained. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” he whispers, belatedly. She shoots him a glance, half-exasperated, and half-worried <em> still</em>. </p>
<p>“We have to go to the med bay. I don’t know how people will react, but I can’t--your leg, and the force lightning, and your arm. They need to be seen by people who know what they are doing.”</p>
<p>He nods, intending to try to straighten away from her, but she wraps her arm around his waist. “We’ll go slow,” she tells him, and he regrets that he hadn’t followed her the year before because he would follow her anywhere, <em> anywhere. </em></p>
<hr/>
<p>He hadn’t ever prepared himself to see his mother again.</p>
<p>Every time he’d thought about it--distantly wanting the comfort of his mother’s arms--he’d pushed it away. Impossible, he’d told himself. Impossible, Snoke had told him. He’d done too much. She would never <em> want </em>to see him again.</p>
<p>But there she is, as Rey leads him down the ramp of the Falcon, looking more worried than he had ever seen her, wringing her hands. She has to visibly restrain herself from coming to him, her eyes tracking over his body, lingering on his leg and his arm.</p>
<p>Rey stops them both when they are in front of her, and he lets himself look at what the years have done to her. She is older than he remembers, obviously, but it is still a shock. There are new lines etched into her face, new worries shadowing her eyes, and he knows he put some of those there. His mother has always carried the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders, but it seems to weigh her down now in a way it hadn’t when he was younger. Her hair--greying now--but in the braided crown he’d practiced over and over when he was a boy before...everything, the braids he’d told her were his favourite on her.</p>
<p>He’d missed her, he realizes.</p>
<p>“Mom,” he finally says, in a voice thick with tears.</p>
<p>Some burden seems to rise from her shoulders, making her, even if only slightly, seem lighter. “Ben.”</p>
<p>Tentatively, she moves to the side Rey is not holding up, lending her own strength in keeping him up and moving. “Let’s get you to the med-bay,” she says, and they walk.</p>
<hr/>
<p>When he wakes hours later, his mother is rifling her fingers through his hair. </p>
<p>He barely remembers the walk that had seemed to last an eternity from the Falcon to the med bay, but somehow they had made it without any of his mother’s people shooting him.</p>
<p>He keeps his eyes closed, content to let his mother comfort him.</p>
<hr/>
<p>When he wakes again, Rey is back, clutching his left hand in both of hers.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They let him leave days later, his leg finally healed enough to walk on, the after effects of the force lightning dissipating. He is fitted with a prosthetic limb. He tries to ignore the suspicious glances everyone but his mother and Rey shot him.</p>
<p>He feels no pull to the dark side any more. It is gone--like it had never been there. He does not trust it. But he does not try to reach out for it, either. He doesn’t reach out for the force at all, except when he wakes to see who is nearby. He does not expect anyone else to trust that, to trust him.</p>
<p>His mother leads him to his new quarters, tucked in between her own and Rey’s. He feels his cheeks flush when she tells him that, and she very nearly smiles at him.</p>
<p>“Aren’t I a prisoner?” he finds himself asking her, seeing the general, the Resistance leader, more than his mother here than he had in the med bay. “You have the Supreme Leader of the First Order in your possession.” </p>
<p><em> Use me to win the war</em>, he wants to tell her, <em> bargain my life anything, anything. </em>But he can’t say it, least of all because he knows no one in the First Order cares enough about him to end the war to save him. It will not work, so he doesn’t suggest it. </p>
<p>His mother shakes her head at him. “Palpatine has declared that you are an enemy of his new government. The Final Order has put a bounty on your head. Those two things have made it very easy to convince people here that you can be an asset to us.”</p>
<p>“I will have to stand trial for what I’ve done,” he insists, stubborn to the last.</p>
<p>She shakes her head at him again. “If you help us win this war, if you provide Rey with a trained Force user who can support her, we are prepared to offer you a full pardon.”</p>
<p>“Mom,” he says, finding himself once again choking back tears in her presence. “How can you <em> want</em>--”</p>
<p>“You are my son,” she tells him firmly, gripping both of his hands, one skin and one metal, in her always-surprisingly strong ones. “I have waited for ten years for you to come home, Ben, and I am selfish enough to use my position to make sure I will not lose you again. If this is not what you want, you can leave, but I would prefer for you to stay.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>He’s not sure who he is anymore, Kylo Ren or Ben, but for the first time in a long, long time he finds himself wanting to be Ben Solo and only Ben Solo. He’s afraid, though.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how to be.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how to be good, not for the Resistance. Not for his mother. Not for Rey.</p>
<p>Rey who he finds with his eyes anytime they are in the same room. Rey who’d told him when he was recovering and she’d thought he was asleep that she did want to take his hand, “Ben’s hand,” and he’d <em> ached </em>to give it to her.</p>
<p>“I thought you wouldn’t come back for me,” she’d said later, again thinking he was sleeping. “I thought I wasn’t enough to make you turn. It wasn’t fair, to either of us. That’s why I was so angry. I didn’t understand why I was never enough.”</p>
<p>Even if now he wants to be Ben Solo, just for her, he knows he can’t. He can’t be who he once was for her alone--not when he’s not sure he wants it for himself. He can’t do it for his mother, or the memory of his father, a memory that stings and hurts and tears at him always. He has to be sure. He has to want it, fully. </p>
<p>He is afraid, so afraid that Palpatine will enter his mind again, will seduce him with promises. He needs to be sure enough, strong enough to resist.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Everyone calls him Ben, and it becomes easier to think of himself by that name again. To recognize the name his parents gave him, to be his father’s son. </p>
<p>He doesn’t hate his name anymore, which feels strange.</p>
<hr/>
<p>His cowl and tunic are permanently gone, but he finds a supply of soft sweaters, ranging in colour from dark grey to black.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Ben often finds Rey in his room, reading a Jedi text, tempting him with research. He prefers to bask in her presence.</p>
<hr/>
<p>One day, he sits cross legged beside her on his floor, reading over her shoulder. </p>
<p>“What does that say?” she asks, reaching a translation in an archaic language.</p>
<p>He examines it, giving her the answer quickly. </p>
<p>They fall into a routine after that, trading the texts back and forth, discussing what they have read. It is so easy, so effortless.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Train with me?” she asks him weeks after that, hope in her eyes. “I could use a sparring partner.”</p>
<p>He swallows thickly, cursing how often that seems to be happening to him lately. “I don’t have a lightsaber any more.”</p>
<p>She nods. “I know. I thought we could both build our own. New ones, with no legacy behind them.”</p>
<p>He understands now the texts she’d been reading--about kyber crystals and lightsaber building. He’d been looking at them with purely academic interest, and she’d been planning. </p>
<p>“The First Order destroyed all the kyber in the galaxy.”</p>
<p>Rey smiles at him. “So conceited,” she chides, producing two crystals from within her bag. </p>
<p>“Where did you get these?” </p>
<p>She shrugs. “I found them.”</p>
<p>Ben laughs, a rusty, grating sound that freezes her briefly before her smile grows in response. “Of course you did, scavenger,” he teases.</p>
<p>He’s hesitant to take the crystal she offers to him. Hesitant for what it will mean, for what he will be opening himself up to if he goes down this path. Still, he feels the force, pressing against him, the call of destiny.</p>
<p>He takes the crystal. </p>
<hr/>
<p>Her new saber staff is yellow on both ends. The color seems to suit her, and he smiles watching her experimentally wield her new weapon.</p>
<p>He finishes his own blade, igniting it, surprised by the yellow of his own saber. Rey notices the color and smiles.</p>
<p>“Copycat,” she teases, good naturedly. </p>
<p>He swings the blade experimentally, passing it back and forth between his hands, getting a feel for it. He’d followed the design of his old lightsaber, but this one feels lighter, less like a fight to weild. </p>
<p>It is hard to ignore the suspicious glances the camp shoots him when they see the lightsaber strapped to his hip. He tries to give the saber to Rey, “Just when we’re not practicing,” but she only shakes her head at him.</p>
<p>“They’ll get used to it with time,” she says, “and so will you.”</p>
<p>He has to retrain himself to use the force through his new limb. </p>
<p>Rey, force love her, offered to ask Luke how he had done it but...Ben has still not spoken to any of his family. He isn’t ready to be forgiven or to forgive. He will do this on his own.</p>
<p><em> Not on your own, </em>Rey reminds him, entwining his metal fingers within hers.</p>
<p>It is enough.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Once, only once, does he hear anyone in the Resistance--the Republic he reminds himself--mentioning his missing limb.</p>
<p>Dameron, muttering as he walks by that he’d been there to remove his other arm, and Ben is willing to let the comment pass him by. It is no more than he deserves he reasons. No more than what his actions have earned him. </p>
<p>But Rey, Rey rushes past him in a blur and has Dameron up against a wall, her elbow pressing into his throat, too angry even to think to use the force. “Say it again and you’ll lose your own arm,” she hisses at her friend, for him.</p>
<p>“Rey,” Ben whispers, clearing his throat past an emotion he’s still not ready to name, ignoring the curious and frightened looks being shot <em> her </em> way. “It’s alright. Let him go.”</p>
<p>She does, reluctantly, shooting glares at Dameron even as she tucks her arm in Ben’s and drags him through the canteen.</p>
<p>The next day, Dameron approaches him, looking like he’d rather face a battalion of enemy soldiers than be there. “Listen, maybe my comment was out of line--”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t,” Ben interrupts. “I understand.”</p>
<p>Dameron sighs, loudly, glancing behind himself before facing Ben once more. “I...appreciate everything you’re doing, <em> recently</em>. I know I shouldn’t...wish harm on an ally.”</p>
<p>He can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him, quick and harsh. “Did Rey tell you what to say?”</p>
<p>Dameron rolls his eyes. “She may have had something to do with it.” He pauses, looking down at Ben’s metal hand. “She said she felt what you felt when it happened.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” he breathes. He hadn’t <em> thought</em>. She’d told him that she’d seen, but not that she’d felt what had happened to him. “I--I hadn’t realized. I should have, but you’re still entitled to think I deserve...what happened to me. After what I did to you, especially.”</p>
<p>Dameron looks shocked silent, before rolling his eyes again and extending a hand. “Let’s just start over then.”</p>
<p>Ben hesitates only briefly, half expecting some kind of trap, before extending his metal hand and gripping Dameron’s proffered one. “Alright.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>He does not touch Rey with any part of himself. She always reaches first, she always had. He waits, expecting any contact with his body to repulse her. And he is always surprised that it never seems to, even as he is so, so grateful that she seems to welcome his touch.</p>
<p>It’s little things, sometimes. </p>
<p>She’ll place a hand on his thigh to heave herself up, a hand on his shoulder when she sits beside him. She touches his hands...often enough that he gets used to it.</p>
<p>Once, he sees her walking around camp in one of his sweaters, and the thought that her body in enveloped in something he had worn is almost too much for him.</p>
<p>“Thief,” he calls her without heat when they meet to train and she is still wearing the garment. </p>
<p>She only smiles, small and almost secretive. “I prefer scavenger.”</p>
<p>Rey gives them both Padawan braids one day. </p>
<p>“We’re too old,” he complains half-heartedly, holding himself stiff, trying not to sink into just how much he craves her touch.</p>
<p>“They’ll mean a new beginning. For both of us, together. We’ll cut them off when we’re ready.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>His mother smiles every time she sees him, and it breaks his heart aknew every time.</p>
<p>It makes him ashamed, that he’d trusted Snoke’s poison even when he knew what the old Supreme Leader really was. </p>
<p>He finds himself doing things for her in between his training and her own duties. He sees a field of flowers when he trains with Rey, and slips back later, plucking some and putting them in his Leia’s room. Later, when she sits beside him at dinner, Rey and her friends--Poe, Finn, and Rose--pretend there is nothing unusual about the General joining them for dinner at all. He sees the flowers he’d plucked woven into her braid, and it nearly makes him cry.</p>
<p>He feels Rey settle a hand on his knee under the table, and he glances at her gratefully, even as his mother starts to regal the table with stories of his childhood, causing the other occupants to laugh and him to groan, “<em>Mom </em>.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Returning to Exegol is...harder than he would have ever thought possible, even with Rey and her friends, and the Resistance behind them all. He is there for Rey, he reminds himself, and it makes it easier. He will not let Palpatine hurt her in the way he hurt him. She is strong enough, strong enough to do anything she wants, but he has to be here for her.</p>
<p>Three lightsabers ignite against the black interior of the Sith Temple. Ben is glad to see Finn wielding his grandfather’s weapon. It suits the man. He had finally admitted to Rey that he thought he was force sensitive, and he had joined their training. Ben had been surprised to find himself not jealous at the new element to their training. Some of it was purely strategic. He and Rey knew each other’s fighting style, intimately by now. Adding a new person, with their own style, had challenged all three of them anew. And still, Rey and Ben would retreat to one of their rooms and poor over the texts together. He knew she told Finn some of it, what she felt was necessary for him to know, but she seemed to want their evenings just for them.</p>
<p>He still fears in the back of his mind that the three of them are not enough, cannot be enough to combat the emperor with all his knowledge and strength. There is a very large chance that not all of them will walk out of this temple, but he will do all he can to ensure that if anyone must be left behind, it will be him.</p>
<p>The emperor laughs when they stand, together, in front of his throne. </p>
<p>“How quaint,” he cackles, “I had wondered what happened to you Ben Solo. And you, my granddaughter, so strong to save him. I knew you would both come. The stormtrooper is a surprise, but no matter.” </p>
<p>He waves a gnarled hand at them. “None of you will be leaving here alive.”</p>
<p>Rey explodes into motion, rushing Palpatine. Ben and Finn both leap after her, only for the emperor to flick his hand toward them, pushing them all back.</p>
<p>“Such <em> anger </em> ,” he whispers, and Ben thinks it’s him, of course it’s him, it’s always been him, his anger, his weakness, “I’m surprised at you granddaughter. A <em> Jedi </em> does not hate.”</p>
<p>She snarls back, pushing herself up off the ground. “I do not hate, not even you.”</p>
<p>“But you are angry,” the old man smirks. “Because I hurt him?” he snears, looking at Ben, who is still struggling to pull himself up. “It is no more than he deserved.”</p>
<p>Ben is shocked to see her bare her teeth at the man claiming to be her grandfather. “Rey, <em> don’t</em>,” he implores, “don’t be angry on my behalf.”</p>
<p>“He hurt you,” she shoots back, without removing her gaze from Palpatine. “I felt every second of it. I have spent hours thinking of how to pay you back for what you did to him,” this she says to the emperor, who only smiles in amusement.</p>
<p>“Revenge?” he <em> tsks </em>at her. “You are proving far more Sith than Jedi, my dear.”</p>
<p>“Rey,” both Ben and Finn say at the same time, even as they come to flank her.</p>
<p>She shakes her head. “Not revenge. Justice. I decided I don’t need hours.”</p>
<p>She jumps, using the force to fling herself behind Palpatine, as Ben and Finn grip his hands down through the force. Ben pushes back some of the guards advancing on them, but Rey is already cutting through the machinery keeping Palpatine up, one end of her blade appearing through his chest. </p>
<p>It is not what they had planned, and they have to cut their way through what feels like an endless procession of guards and adherents, and they are cut and bruised when they emerge from the crumbling ruins to find---ships, thousands of them, shooting down the Emperor’s and the First Order’s ships. </p>
<p>The Republic has won the war.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“We won,” Rey says later, sitting on his cot, her legs tucked under her. She closes her eyes, resting her head back on the wall. “We won.”</p>
<p>He sits beside her, his back against the wall, one leg help up against his chest. “We won,” he says, listening to the sounds of celebration outside the room. </p>
<p>She opens her eyes, turning her head towards him. “You see what happens when we go into dangerous situations together?”</p>
<p>He groans. “I get it, I get it. But...if I hadn’t gone, maybe we wouldn’t be,” he gestures helplessly between them, “<em>here</em>.”</p>
<p><em> Together</em>, he thinks, <em> with you looking at me like I’m...something wonderful</em>.</p>
<p>“You are wonderful,” this is spoken softly, so softly he almost doesn’t catch it. “I--” and she cuts herself off, shaking her head before she goes to her knees, scooting across the bed until she’s in front of him. He can’t move, can only stay, frozen, wide eyed, waiting to see what she will do.</p>
<p>What she does is---she tangles her hand into his hair, rising enough to press her lips to his. And he presses back, sighing into the kiss, the sense of rightness, and <em> finally </em>that fills him. She surges forward, pressing her body to his. He falls back, and she goes with him, and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, until she breaks away to breath. </p>
<p>Rey rises above him, pressing her hands against his chest. “Ben,” she says, voice breaking, “<em>touch me</em>.”</p>
<p>He hadn’t thought, again he hadn’t thought. He hadn’t considered that she would crave his touch every bit as much as he craves hers.</p>
<p>He gathers her to him, wrapping his arms around her, and groans at it. Rey sighs, <em>melting </em>against him. </p>
<p>She jolts slightly when his metal hand slips under her shirt, and he nearly pulls his hand away, but she twists a hand behind herself, pressing the metal more firmly into her back.</p>
<p>“It was the cold,” she murmurs against his lips, kissing him briefly. “I’ll get used to it.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Dazedly, he strips her of her clothing and layers, kissing old and new scars as he goes. He is still fully dressed by the time she is naked above him, and she shifts off, pulling him back to a seated position.</p>
<p>“I love your sweaters,” she says, nipping at his collarbone as she grips the hem of the sweater. She moves back to strip it off of him, and he obligingly raises his arms so she can pull it off easier. She pushes him back to the bed, tossing the garment behind herself. She runs her hands over his chest. “I wished for months that I’d let myself look at you the first time I saw you like this.”</p>
<p>He gulps, choking when she moves back, pressing her core against his hardened length, grinding down on it. “I thought you were disgusted,” he admits.</p>
<p>She scoffs, leaning down to press a kiss against his neck, moving down further to swirl her tongue across one nipple. </p>
<p>“Don’t stop touching me,” she orders, and he finds that his hands have moved to grip the bedclothes beneath him. Obediently, he raises them to settle against her hips. Rey moves back up to kiss his mouth again and he sinks into it, the feeling, gripping her more tightly to him. He’s content with this, until she pulls away, moving away from his touch. </p>
<p>“I thought,” he chokes out as she brushes against his length with her hand, “that you didn’t want me to stop touching you.”</p>
<p>She looks up at him, smiling, even as she slinks further down, “I don’t want you to stop touching me, Ben. However, I think I’d like your pants off.”</p>
<p><em> Oh</em>, he thinks. “Oh,” he says, intelligently. </p>
<p>Rey is already tugging his pants down, so he lifts his hips, shoving the fabric down to help her.</p>
<p>“Eager?” she teases, a knowing look in her eyes, but he doesn't answer. He doesn’t have to. She’s just as eager; he hears the fabric rip slightly in her haste to get the pants off of him, and then she’s back over him, grabbing his hands and placing them back on her hips, settling her wet core--so unbelievably, perfectly <em> wet </em>--against him, grinding down again and again. He grips her, hands flexing on her skin.</p>
<p>“I’ve never,” he gasps, clutching her, clutching her, surging up to kiss her lips, licking into her mouth. “I’ve never,” he says into her mouth, “I’ve never done this.”</p>
<p>“Me either,” she admits. “Another thing for us to learn together.”</p>
<p>It’s fast and wet and perfect and everything he’s ever wanted.</p>
<p>She flips them, landing on her back, with him rising above her. He does what he’d long imagined, letting his hand fall between her legs, swirling a finger through the wetness he finds there. He presses his finger into her, and she gasps, arching up. “Tell me how to touch you,” he growls. </p>
<p>She brings her own hand to join his, gripping his hand, guiding his wet finger outside of her to a place between her legs. “Here,” she gasps again. He’s a quick study, he always has been, and he remembers the speed and pressure she’d been using that one time the force had joined them when she’d been doing this.</p>
<p>She shivers under him, convulsing under his hand. He follows his instincts, lowering his head to drag his tongue against one puckered nipple before taking it between his teeth, biting down softly. Rey shatters beneath him, clutching at his shoulders, holding his head down against her chest. He slips two fingers into her, just to feel her convulse around him. He groans, deep in his throat. He lifts his head finally, looking down at her dazed face, smiling at him. Ben drops his forehead down to hers, breathing her in.</p>
<p>“Up, up,” she orders, tugging at him when she grows impatient, “get inside me.”</p>
<p>He laughs softly, but complies, the sound morphing into a groan again when Rey grips him in one hand and guides him into her. He can hardly breathe when he is in her; his hands move as if by instinct, under her, lifting her hips up to meet his, slowly, as he watches her face. He stops pressing in when he feels resistance, suddenly unsure again.</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” she murmurs, “do it, please, please, <em> Ben</em>.”</p>
<p>He feels her twinge of pain and it’s nearly enough to make him withdraw from her completely, but she wraps her legs around his waist, trapping him against her. “<em>Don’t you dare</em>,” she tells him, and what can he do in the face of her want? He moves, tentatively at first, and then gives in to her urging to go faster, deeper, making them both cry out.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“I love you,” she tells him after and he feels the world still.</p>
<p><em> Oh</em>, he thinks, <em> ohohoh</em>. </p>
<p>He hadn’t ever thought to hope--even after what they had just done.</p>
<p>He does the only thing he can think to do, wrapping her in his arms and holding her as tight to himself as he possibly can, gruffly mumbling in her ear, “Sweetheart. I love you, I love you, I love you.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>“I have something for you,” he murmurs one morning, rolling out of their bed and retrieving something from within his small chest. He pads back to her, sitting on the edge of their bed. He places a necklace over her head, one he’d spent secret hours carving.</p>
<p>She rolls the beads between her fingers, before lifting her head, a smile gracing her perfect face. “You made this?” he nods, even as she’s already pushing herself up to kiss him, stroking his face.</p>
<p>He can hear the sounds of the waking camp outside their room, knows that they’ll have to get up and go about their day. They’re leaving the planet today, and he and Rey are going with his mother, first to Corellia to see where his father was born, and then to Naboo to see where his grandmother lived and where his mother and uncle might have grown up had things been different. They have no plans after that, but it’s time, and he is ready.</p>
<p>He twines his hands with Rey’s, the metal of his one hand a familiar sight against the tan of her skin by now. Every day, it seems to be a gift from the universe that he is allowed to do this, to be hers, for her to want to be his. For his touch to be welcome, for her to touch him.</p>
<p>They don’t speak as they pack and dress and get ready, though he does smile at her knowingly when she pulls one of his sweaters over her head, and she pretends to ignore him, though he still catches her answering smile. He cards his fingers through her hair when he has to walk by her to get something, and she caresses his back seconds later when she has to move past him to grab the Jedi texts.</p>
<p>When they’re done and ready, he tugs her to him, placing one last kiss on her lips in this room.</p>
<p>“You ready?” she asks.</p>
<p>He nods, stroking a finger down her cheek. </p>
<p>“Oh,” she gasps, clutching his hand excitedly as they start to walk, “don’t let me forget to tell you about what Rose told me yesterday.”</p>
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